


Baby Teeth

by SubwayWolf



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adult Eddie Kaspbrak, Adult Richie Tozier, Condoms, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28083759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubwayWolf/pseuds/SubwayWolf
Summary: If Richie Tozier's life is a comedy, then Eddie's starring role makes it a divine one.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 29





	Baby Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> it seems so redundant to have 'adult richie tozier' and 'internalized homophobia' tags on the same fic. those two tags are kind of a package deal. 
> 
> i initially wrote this late 2019/early 2020 but never finished it. so i went through it and made it kinda presentable. though it's underdeveloped, i still think it works. at least i hope so. 
> 
> please be aware that there's some brief discussions of depression and suicidal ideation in this fic. also, it's rated mature - there is no explicit sex, but there definitely lead-up to it with sexual content, sexual language, and nudity.

_“Nah, bro, it’s not gay! Not at all, bro – look, I’ll just put your dick in my mouth, and, uh, if you don’t come, it isn’t gay.”_

He did come. Fast. But good fast, because Richie’s jaw had quickly gone slack with numbing pain from keeping it open so wide, having been scared he might get too toothy with it. The same kind of toothy as their first kiss had been, teeth clashing with their lips, their heads practically knocking together. That kiss had hurt Richie’s jaw, too, now that he thought of it. But, hell, that didn’t matter at the time. It barely mattered now. When you think back on things like that, it never matters.

It’s not gay? Of course it was fucking gay. Years ago, Richie felt his face go red and his body get hot in the wrong places, and he would stand at the bathroom sink gripping the edges and scooping handfuls of cold water up to his face as quickly as he could. More recently, he would feel that rushing heat come up to his face again, rising hand-in-hand with the memories, and he would think, _of course_ it was fucking gay! And he would cover his face with a hand, embarrassed, and just laugh. He’d laugh because it was so goddamn funny. Really, it was – all of it. Good funny and bad funny. As if there were a difference.

Humor itself did not make a difference, or change anything. Honestly, it never did. Richie had built a goddamn career out of humor; built a life out of it. He’d relied so deeply on it that even the burning, searing feeling of stringy heart muscular tissue being ripped in half every time he thought about the past and about Eddie fucking Kapsbrak – all that pain, in the end, it just felt like one big goddamn joke.

* * *

“You are a fuck… You are a fucking idiot--”

“I’m a fuck?” Richie parroted. “Dude, what does that even mean?”

“Fuck you. Just shut up. _Just shut up._ Just close your fucking mouth, and put…. And put your teeth together and keep your tongue still and just don’t say anything. Just stop talking. Just breathe, silently. Fucking… silently.”

Just breathe. Ah, if only it were that easy. Breathing was something so involuntary and natural, the diaphragm moving on its own without the body even thinking about it. People breathe in their sleep; no consciousness required. Autonomous. It happens all on its own. Not to mention, it’s necessary for survival and whatever. 

But being autonomic did not make it easy. Not around Eddie. 

Kicked up heart rate, wet pits, shortness of breath… all side effects of love, of course. But also of fear. 

Fear, like poison through the blood. The kind of fear Richie felt when racking his brain with questions like _What if Eddie knows?_ and _What if Eddie hates me?_ Worse, even, when those questions began to fill Richie with more anxiety than having more dangerous ideations like, _What if people find out, and hurt me, and hate me, and kill me?_

Just breathe.

Even back when they were kids, it wasn’t easy to just breathe. 

Eddie shook that stupid plastic inhaler and pulled a hit off of it like his life depended on it, whenever he couldn’t breathe. And Richie almost never failed to mock and tease him for it. 

How ironic that Richie was the one who had the goddamn lung trouble, seizing up like anaphylaxis, just from Eddie looking at him sometimes. He didn’t even have to be smiling, or laughing, or looking cute. He could just look at him. And all of a sudden, it was Richie who needed medical assistance. 

Ironic, really. Richie might have laughed, but he so rarely found humor in irony. But all that irony, and the doubt alongside it - it’s gone. Forever. Hopefully.

* * *

Eddie says, “I don’t want to forget what this feels like.”

Fuck. Oh, fuck. Richie feels it again, feels his breath leaving him. But it isn’t fear this time. It’s his throat closing up, burning… Fuck. He’s going to cry.

Eddie’s crying, too. Richie can see the whites of his big eyes getting glossy and irritated red. Little pools of tears lining the edges, threaded up from falling by his dark eyelashes. 

_What does beauty look like, really?_ It’s all objective, right? Richie wonders, _does it look like this? Does it feel like this?_

“What…” Richie’s voice is so weak. It sounds as weak as he feels. He swallows all the feelings down. They feel like a goddamn rock in his throat, but he manages. “What do you want?”

It sounds so standoffish, and he doesn’t mean it. Eddie blinks his long lashes and the line of tears threatens to fall. But it doesn’t. “I want to be with you. Fuck. I need it.”

 _Need it._ The intensity he said that with. Holy shit. The vision of Eddie’s face, his quivering lip, the way the street light is making his features and eyes light up… That image starts to blur. Not in the way forgetting feels. It blurs in the way crying like a pussy feels.

Richie is crying, and is aware that he’s crying, but isn’t fast enough or really even stable enough to do anything about it. 

What a fucking joke.

Yeah, a joke. This time, irony is hilarious. Because everything that was hard about being in the closet and being afraid and being a pussy and being totally convinced that kissing your best friend, and sucking your best friend’s dick, and being in love with your best friend, would be the death of you… It turns out that none of that shit should have been difficult at all. It turns out, the whole being-in-love thing was the easiest thing to ever happen to Richie Tozier.

* * *

“What is-- Rich, genuinely, what the _fuck_ is this? Look at this shit! All this shit, everywhere! You can’t for real live like this. Tell me this is a joke.”

It is a joke. 

When Richie thinks back on the days where fear straight up poisoned him, poisoned him to the point of isolation and immobility and the darkest of darks he’d ever experienced (well, the second-closest thing) – he finds it funny now. Bad funny. Funny in the way something is cringe-worthy. 

Being in a bad place for so long, it starts to look like the six walls of a room you might be in for the rest of your life until you die. You find yourself short of breath and then holding your breath and then the darkness kind of seems like the best option, all things considered. _All things_ considered. When the other option is living, and that option is so exhausting you can’t laugh or get out of bed or eat – when depression turns into a living thing and just eats you the fuck alive – then the alternative of just ending it all seems less like darkness and more like the only light in reach. 

And as shitty as that is, and as shitty as it felt to be so horribly sick, brain rotting from corrosive suicidal ideation every single day, it’s _still_ funny. In that stupidly ironic way. Because if Richie had done it, he could never be here. 

The depression doesn’t go away. It probably never will. But Eddie makes it easier. And Prozac makes it easier. And laughing – at shit that is legitimately funny, for once – that makes it easier, too.

That first night, after talking with Eddie in the night time, when it almost rained like a goddamn movie or something, all Richie could remember was watching Eddie walk around his apartment, picking things up off the ground and sneering and talking flippantly and cleaning things up. And Richie just stood in his kitchen and stared at him like all of it was a dream, or some illusion, bent in the light of the open fridge door. 

It wasn’t a dream, though, because Richie could barely fucking breathe the whole time, and at least when you’re sleeping, breathing comes easy. 

“You live in trash, bro. This has _got_ to change.”

Or what? Or he’s going to leave? Some part of Richie, even then, knew it would never happen. Richie would get on his hands and knees and scrub every last inch of his shitty apartment if it meant Eddie was happy. Of course he doesn’t say that out loud, though.

Instead he says, “If you don’t like it you can leave, dude.”

What a joke. Not a joke in the ha ha funny way. Just a joke in the way that Richie physically can not express his genuine feelings. Showing the soft meat inside means demolishing the wall of solid brick, being-a-complete-asshole, and mortar was in the way.

He would get better at that, in time. But never cured, never perfect. Saying witty, funny, rude shit comes way too easy to him. 

And it makes him laugh. And it makes Eddie laugh, sort of. His lips would twitch up in a smile for a fraction of a second, his nose crinkling up a bit with it. Then he’d replace it with that quick, loud fury of his, rushing to toss an insult back. Just that little gesture of amusement is enough. Whatever anger Richie has to sit back, take, eat up in return, it’s all worth it. Just to see that little flash of amusement.

“I’m not gonna leave, dickwad,” Eddie says with a sigh. Thankfully, and typically, he doesn’t take Richie that seriously. “I just brought all my fucking suitcases up three flights of stairs, dude.”

“Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?”

“I’m in a bad mood ‘cause you’re a _dick_ and because, seriously, what kind of shitty apartment complex do you live in that the elevator doesn’t work, bro? Like, aren’t you rich or whatever? You play sold-out shows! Where does the money go? Just shoving it up your ass, dude? Drinking it away? Do you gamble, or some shit? ‘Cause I know it doesn’t, like, go to a youth charity or homeless shelter or whatever the fuck.”

Richie is half-listening. He can’t stop staring. Just affectionately staring, wondering how he got so lucky, wondering if he deserves it.

Richie wanted to go sit on his bed and make Eddie sit next to him and just kiss him. Just make out with him. Like they used to.

* * *

“Let’s make out. Please.”

Eddie stares at him. He goes totally silent. 

_Please?_ Oh, fuck, really? That’s what he chose to say? “Uh, I mean…” He doesn’t know how to finish his sentence. Because, the truth is, he did mean it. So he’s going to dig his heels in and commit, for once in his life. “Yeah. I want to,” Richie says firmly. “I want to kiss you.”

Eddie is standing in the middle of the kitchen, perfectly still. “Are you fucking serious right now?”  
_Serious as a heart attack,_ he wants to say, but what comes out of his heart before his head can catch up is, “Like we used to.”

Visibly, Eddie’s heart shatters. He swallows so hard, Richie can see it in his throat. Can see his eyes soften and sparkle. 

Then he smiles. 

Not like smiling at a joke. Because Richie is not joking. All he wants right now is to be close to Eddie and touch him and kiss him because, shit, it’s been twenty-seven years. Well, not really. They got their chances to kiss since returning to Derry, and took those opportunities with varying degrees of surprise and poor timing and competency. But now, it’s so different. 

Funny – _hilarious_ , really – how everything could be so different and still the exact same.

* * *

When they get to the bed and kiss and start taking their shirts off, everything goes blurry again. Richie wants so badly to be in the moment, to focus on what he feels and tastes and sees. But his mind whirs like a hurricane. He can’t focus when they kiss. 

When the room stops spinning, Eddie is in the process of pulling off Richie’s underwear for him. A cold rush of air rushes over his exposed lower half, but it’s replaced by the heat of Eddie’s manic, rushed fury. 

“Ah, dude, you look like an old man down here.” Eddie places Richie’s dirty underwear in the dirty laundry basket, overflowing with smelly clothes, but doesn’t pause his tirade. “Do you take care of yourself down there at all? Nobody’s seen it in a while, or what? Jesus. Do you smell this shit, too?”

Richie’s all sprawled out on the bed like a lax, comfortable cat. “Shut the fuck up. Stop fucking with me.”

Eddie sits on the bed with him. He sits up on the bed where Richie’s head is laying. He’s naked, too, and surprisingly comfortable in his skin. Richie definitely does look like a hairy sleazebag without clothes. Eddie, meanwhile? He’s all fucking pristine, honestly. Richie knows his face and body by memory well enough, so he fixates between Eddie’s legs, naturally. His pubes are dark and curling up a bit, slightly wet from body sweat and heat. They are old, after all, so Rich will excuse him for that. Not out loud.

Richie is starting to realize just how close Eddie’s dick is to his face. This is really happening, and fast. Richie feels like it’s time to deflect, for his own heart’s safety. “Look who’s talking - your pubes stink, dude! You are sweaty as fuck.”

“It’s hot in here. You asshole. Turn on the A/C, you cheap fuck.”

“Getting hot and heavy with me will make you sweat no matter how low I turn the A/C down, babe.”

“Fuck off. Shut up. Put a condom on your dick.”

He’s serious about that part. Richie is getting better at pacing himself, and not pushing Eddie to the edge on purpose, as often. Sometimes it’s for the best that he surrenders every so often. It’s healthy for his ego. 

Richie gets out of his relaxed position without protest. He sits on the side of the bed and starts digging around in his side drawer for condoms. It’s a fucking mess in there and might take a while to find. He might as well entertain Eddie by talking in the mean time.

Teasing the hell out of Eddie comes naturally. Richie is grinning even though he has his back to him. “I hear what you’re saying but, you know… If we’re gonna do this on the reg, we should fluid-bond. Get all our fluids – our spit and come and blood and all that nasty stuff – all mixed up and genetically compatible, so we’ve got the same bacteria breeding and mutating inside us.”

Eddie scoffs, a familiar and priceless sound. “That’s not – What!? That’s _not_ a real thing, first of all. And second of all, it’s disgusting, totally disgusting! Do you know how disgusting that is, dude? Don’t even get me started on how many diseases, viruses, pathogens, whatever can be passed just by kissing alone. And third of all--”

“Oh, shut it.” Richie dismissively waves him off. “I’ll use protection, and I’ll lube you and me up well and good.” He finally spots a glow of a foil at the bottom of the drawer and pulls it out. He turns back to the bed and holds it up as proof. “I’ll wear two condoms if it makes you happy. That’s safer, right? Can’t hurt.”

“No. That’s a myth. That doesn’t help.”

“It does help. I actually just read about it, recently. I saw an article. Double-bagging doesn’t decrease the risk of STD’s, pregnancy, STI’s, or any of that; you’re right. But scientists recently discovered that it does wonders to prevent a certain condition. Do you know which one?”

“No, I don’t. What is it?”

“Hypochondria, bro.”

Eddie doesn’t find that funny, at all, and it shows when he sets his jaw and lowers his brow in pure annoyance. The expression on his face alone, it’s so cute but even more than that, it’s hilarious. Richie laughs. 

“You fucking… Ugh. You are on my goddamn nerves, Rich.”

Richie gets ahold of himself. “And I’ll be in your guts if you be patient for five seconds and let me do my thing here.”

“Fuck it. Fuck you.” His ire is reaching new heights. He doesn’t have the patience for this. “No way. I’m done. I don’t want it.”

Richie wants to laugh again. “Oh, thank god.”

Eddie takes that the wrong way. Of course he does. He has every reason to anticipate that Richie would fuck up and say the meanest thing possible. “Thank god?” He repeats, quieter this time. His tranquil fury is the scaries. “Thank fuckin’ god? Is that what you just said to me? What does that even mean!? Are you just fucking with me right now? Because that isn’t funny.”

“Relax. I said _thank god_ because I want _you_ to top _me_.” As Richie starts running his mouth, Eddie’s anger fades away. “I want it _so_ badly. Like… Not to be vulnerable, or get in my feelings, or whatever, but…” Now that Richie has started, he can’t hold it back. “Eds, I want you in me. I want all of you in me. I want you up in me so far I taste it in my freakin’ mouth.”

“That’s not… That’s not even…” Eddie sighs, a deep breath, a release. “God damn it.”

He looks Eddie right in the eyes. He has to, if he’s going to finally deliver this line, finally say what he means. “Hey. Eds?”

“What?”

“I’m in love with you. I love you.”

“God damn it.” Eddie’s face is flushed, his arms are folded in a body language that screams _I’m trying to hide my vulnerability and failing miserably._ It’s all so familiar. 

Richie doesn’t even expect to hear an _I love you too_ , but it doesn’t matter at all. Not at all. Richie can feel the stupid smile on his own face and it brings him joy to know it’s definitely annoying the shit out of Eddie right now.

Eddie comes around. “I love you, too,” he says, quiet. It’s from his heart, though.

It brings him joy to hear that, too. And it isn’t funny, but he laughs. And there’s fucking tears in his eyes again. But, whatever. Things will be different, for the upcoming acts of Richie’s life. But they’ll also be the same, because it will always be a comedy.


End file.
